>
>On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 2:31 AM, Michelle Swanson
><[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>
>> The following is a beautiful cross-nursing story about a baby whose mother
>> died at birth and is being nursed by women in his community. It's a very
>> nice story...
>>
> > http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/524498.html?nav=5006
>>
Whatever I now say in this post does not mean my heart does not go
out to this family, with now four motherless children, and the
sterling efforts of this baby's dad and the kind women who have
volunteered to help out by breastfeeding the little boy. It is a
desperate, sad thing that has happened to them, and the mothers who
take time out to share their milk are wonderful.
But.
"A schedule was put together with feeding times at 9 a.m., noon, 1:30
, 4 , 6:30 and 8 p.m. Six times a day a different mother has been
feeding Moses for the past two months."
This is not what breastfeeding is about.
Six different women a day, and probably other mothers on different
days - the story reports a team of 20 women from the local bf
support group - feeding to a schedule is really the only
practicable way this little boy can be breastfed, I know that....but
while the nutritional impact of receiving breastmilk is undeniable,
and he is more or less getting this, this is not the way to replicate
the emotional and psychological effects of breastfeeding.
I believe these effects matter - that breastfeeding is not about the
milk alone. Breastfeeding is the easiest way to be responsive to a
baby's needs to feed when he is hungry/thirsty/in need of contact;
the easiest way to meet the baby's development need for a constant,
loving caregiver, who does not change every few hours; the easiest
way to build up social confindence and trust in the world.....and so
on.
I would never dream of saying this to this family who are doing the
best they can and where the dad is doing the best he can to be that
baby's constant figure when he is with the baby....but on this list,
I feel safe in expressing my doubts.
When a baby is unable to be breastfed by his mother, for whatever
reason, the next best thing would be wet nursing by someone who was
constant and responsive and loving. The next best thing after that
would be expressed breastmilk, given in a bottle, by the constant,
responsive and loving person....*not* a succession of different
people feeding to a schedule.
So while community support is something to celebrate, lets not
pretend that this baby is somehow getting anything like what he would
have got if his mother was feeding him, or that what's happening now
is better than a bottle of ebm. Because it really isn't.
Making breastfeeding solely 'about the milk' and not about the
relationship it enhances (and the foundation for future
relationships) makes it possible for employment conditions which
'allow' 6-week postnatal women to bring their pumps to work ....and
for these conditions to be lauded as 'supporting breastfeeding'.
Breastfeeding is not just about the milk.
Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK
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